Wiktionary talk:Votes/2016-04/New logo

some editors think it does not represent our mission

The tiles logo

"The tiles logo [...] some editors think it does not represent our mission."

How so? I interpret the logo this way: these are the "pieces" we use to build the dictionary collectively. I like it. In which way it does not represent our mission? --Daniel Carrero (talk) 07:26, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree on a personal level. I simply sought to synthesise some of the comments on each logo in a simplified way. You are welcome to change it to better reflect pertinent historical opinions on the logos, but please don't make the blurbs for each logo much longer than they are. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:18, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Tiles make me think "word game", not "dictionary". Equinox ◑ 15:32, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Ages 2-4. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 16:49, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

No, ages 6–10. Two- to four-year-olds could choke on the tiles. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:59, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Maybe the tiles are a a metre by a metre each... —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:38, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Maybe the 2–4 year olds are giants... —Aryamanarora ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 03:26, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

I will only support this logo if the Food and Drug Administration adds a label warning that the tiles are a choking hazard for 2–4 year old children who may or may not be giants. —JohnC5 05:55, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

"GIMME MORE TILES" [1] Equinox ◑ 06:16, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

You may think to a word game, but it's not explicit, while the Wikipedia logo explicitly refers to a jigsaw puzzle. Lmaltier (talk) 18:52, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

The jigsaw is a metaphor for a project that keeps having more content added. I don't see what the tiles are a metaphor for. Equinox ◑ 18:54, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

I think the tiles symbolize the way the characters/graphemes can be rearranged to form words. There are a limited set of graphemes, but a huge variety of combinations. Quiddity (talk) 00:31, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

It also shows the diversity of languages on Wiktionary, which, in my honest opinion, is the only thing that make Wiktionary better than other dictionary websites. -Xbony2 (talk) 11:01, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Also, Scrabble-like tiles can be added onto infinitely, while jigsaw puzzles have edges and stop sometime. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:05, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, but don't say Scrabble-like: they are not Scrabble-like (no 1, 2... as associated values). They are closer to Jarnac (or other games) tiles. Lmaltier (talk) 20:20, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Bananagrams comes to mind. But even in Scrabble the numbers are not necessary on the tiles themselves if you have them memorized or you have a chart. --WikiTiki89 20:26, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Or if you don't play for points. I usually didn't when I was a kid; I just played for the fun of seeing who could come up with the most exotic words. To this day I'm proud of the time I played QUARTZ. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:30, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Process and status quo

The vote is setup to give equal weight to all three options. That, I fear, cannot really be the case. The status quo has to be given precedence. What the vote can propose is two options: 1) switch from the status quo to the book, and 2) switch from the status quo to the tiles. The option of staying with the status quo is not really a separate option that can fail. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:13, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

My current thought on what I am going to do is this: if the vote remains as is, I will have to oppose the whole vote. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky: I don't think you read the vote. Here is the relevant line: "whichever logo gets the largest support:oppose ratio wins, and if no logo has more support votes than oppose votes, the current logo will remain." So if the option of staying with the status quo fails, it will remain the status quo if the other two options fail as well. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 14:57, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

However, the vote seems to to change the percentage required to alter the status quo from the usual 2/3rds requirement to "the largest support:oppose ratio", which could be e.g. 10:9. As far as I know, that's never been a "pass" in situations where there was a status quo. One might rewrite the vote to say "the largest support:oppose ratio which meets the usual criteria for passage" or the like. But that raises a question about voting policy in general: if there is a "passable" percentage in favor of non-status-quo option A (say, 68%) and a passable percentage in favor of non-status-quo option B (say, 70%), does B win or does B need to beat both the status quo and A by 2/3rds? - -sche (discuss) 15:58, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

IMHO, for votes in general, if any non-status-quo option beats the status quo by 2/3, then the option with the highest percentage should win. I think it would be unreasonable to stick with the status quo in that situation, because it violates the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) criterion described at w:Voting system. In your example, if A were removed from the vote then B would win, and to pass IIA the removal of a non-winning candidate should not affect the result of the vote, so B should win. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 16:17, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

The mechanism you stated cannot be accepted if the principle of status quo is to prevail: that a change away from status quo requires 2/3 supermajority. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:30, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

• Indeed, this allows for simple majority rather than supermajority, the exact cutoff for which we have never determined. If people are uncomfortable with that, we can change the vote to require a 2/3 majority for the winning option. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:31, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

It's somewhat confusing to speak of ratios and then give a fraction, and I almost changed "2/3" to "2:1", but the issue is bigger than that. First, it's odd to speak of ratios at all. If the Tiles logo gets 2 supporters and 1 opponent while the current logo gets 10 supporters and 10 opponents, then Tiles would pass according to the text of the vote, since it has the larger ratio and that ratio meets the 2/3rds requirement, unless you're counting votes supporting one (current) logo as votes opposing others. I think that, as Dan suggested above, we should remove the option for the current logo, because it is unnecessary; those who support the current logo can oppose the proposed changes. Then, I suggest rewording things to go with whichever logo has more support, provided that the support outnumbers the opposition by the customary amount. - -sche (discuss) 00:38, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

@-sche: I'll freely admit that I am not especially sure of my vote design. That said, your criticisms don't actually make a whole lot of sense to me. Firstly, fractions are a way of expressing a ratio, from a mathematical standpoint. I think the Tiles option should win in the scenario you detailed, because it would have to be acceptable to a great deal of voters who chose not to oppose it. And I think that having a separate option for the incumbent is a good way to get some real numbers about what people feel about the current logo. Explicit support votes for the current logo would mean that making a new vote is pointless, whereas a split in support for the alternatives but no support for the incumbent means that a very different strategy should be adopted. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:50, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

The vote currently says "iff that ratio equals or exceeds 2/3", but that doesn't make sense—then a logo could win even if it has more oppose votes than support votes. Surely what you meant was either "iff that ratio equals or exceeds 2:1" or "iff the ratio of support votes to total votes equals or exceeds 2/3". In other words, the text seems to be mixing up the ratio of support votes to oppose votes and the ratio of support votes to total votes. That needs to change. I think that's what -sche was getting at with the concern about ratios and fractions. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 05:31, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Ok, sorry. I've changed it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:24, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Old vote, new vote, and need for a single logo

Both the book and the tiles are the result of community votes, and the tiles one is the most recent one. This explains why the tiles logo is the most represented in the projects: the need for a single universal logo is probably the strongest argument for this one. — Dakdada 10:23, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Can you link us to the vote where the tiles logo won? I only found one vote, and the book logo won in it. --WikiTiki89 21:20, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the book logo won the most recent vote. But in any case, it doesn’t matter. We’re the ones who should vote on it, not Metawiki. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 21:24, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. -Xbony2 (talk) 22:40, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

My mistake, I totally missed the books logo voting process... Given that the tile logo is still the main one everywhere, it shows how bad the voting process was.

It remains that 1) we should have a common logo for all chapters and 2) Metawiki is the right place to vote for such a logo (because choosing e.g. en.wiktionary may give undue weight to the local wiki users). The problem is that every time we had a vote on Metawiki, the voting process became a mess (e.g. with people from non-Wiktionary projects voting). — Dakdada 08:50, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

You keep saying things like "the need for a single universal logo" and "we should have a common logo for all chapters" as if the reason for these things were obvious. But why? I certainly don't see any obvious reason. --WikiTiki89 16:09, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Yeah. In theory there is something to be said for consistent branding, but in practice the various Wiktionaries operate so differently (policies, formatting, markup) that it wouldn't mean much. Equinox ◑ 14:36, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

The idea is that showing a variety of logos for each language, of various quality, hurts the project as a whole more than it helps promote it. If you look at http://www.wiktionary.org, you will see the logo changing shape completely between different languages (it's also the wrong one for some of them). You may not care about it because you are working on the most used project, but smaller Wiktionary projects need a common brand.

Here is an example: if you go to mg:Manokana:Fiovana_farany, it is not obvious that this is a Wiktionary project. Compare with w:mg:Manokana:Fiovana_farany, where the universal Wikipedia logo is immediately recognizable, even if you don't talk the language. — Dakdada 09:53, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

You still haven't made it clear why this hurts the project, or why smaller projects need a common brand. Do the users of those projects feel that they are suffering? Equinox ◑ 10:35, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

It all comes down to what face we show as a project. The logo most likely to be used outside of Wikimedia is the English version (due to its language and size). But its current logo can't be used by other projects, unless translated, which makes it different anyway. In other words, the logo that most e.g. journalists would use would only represent the English version, and not the variety of other languages. So, yeah, I think it hurts the other projects if they can't be grouped under the same banner.

Now, this mostly applies to the current text "logo", but if you change the English logo, why make it different from the other Wiktionary projects? Is the English project so different from the others that it should be isolated? All other projects have a common logo, a common brand. Why should Wiktionary be different? — Dakdada 12:16, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Favicon

The tiles logo has an associated favicon. simple:, for whatever reason, uses the book logo and the tile favicon... but I submit that our current favicon works well with the book logo and could (IMO should) be retained if we switch to the book logo. - -sche (discuss) 00:21, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

What next?

The current logo is getting more opposition than support, which confirms to me that a change is still in order. That said, the book logo currently does not have a large enough supermajority to pass. Unless something substantial changes, which is unlikely given that 48 people have already voted, a new vote will have to be made to address the failures of this one. One possibility is trying out Dan's tileless tiles logo, which might garner more support. Are there any other ideas for how to proceed? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:31, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

I think the logo that has the most support should be instated. There is clearly no consensus for having the current logo. —CodeCat 00:33, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

So you're suggesting a confirmation vote for the book logo? We can't change the rules after the vote is run. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:37, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

I'd favor that. I don't see a reason to think that the 'tile-less tiles logo' would get much more support than what it's derived from, and pace msh, I'm even more sceptical that other logos which have previously gotten even less support would somehow win (also, avoiding a proliferation of standards is good). - -sche (discuss) 01:41, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

The reason is that the derivative addresses the complaints raised against the tile logo. Therefore, some of the opposers of the tile logo may support this one, or at least abstain. OTOH, some of the supporters of the tile logo may dislike the derivative. I do not really know; that is what is to be found out. I created Wiktionary:Votes/2016-05/New logo 2 to find out. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:04, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Normally when a vote fails we don't immediately try again. Clearly not enough people want the book logo for it to pass. Since there was no vote on Dan's derivative, I would have no problem having a vote for that. --WikiTiki89 16:13, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Clearly not enough people, not even a majority, want the current logo. So why do we insist on keeping it? —CodeCat 16:46, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Because until an alternative logo has enough support, we have to stick with the status quo. Same principle as any other vote. --WikiTiki89 17:04, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

The status quo has no consensus. The majority wants the book logo. Why do we insist on keeping the old logo without consensus? —CodeCat 17:06, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

The way our votes work, a vote proposes to make a change to the status quo and if it fails, the status quo remains. Even though the status quo does not have consensus, it cannot be changed without an alternative that does achieve consensus. --WikiTiki89 17:33, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Assuming 7-4-2 is a no consesus then your bot is still a bot because the way out votes work. So you might want to rethink your stance about votes. --Dixtosa (talk) 18:30, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

That's 4-7-2 actually. But it's irrelevant. I'm not going to change my principles for personal interest. I believe that a majority opinion should not be ignored. With our current stance, the inertia of the status quo means that changes are too hard to initiate and too hard to undo when opinions change. This leads to practices that few people agree with, but nobody can change. How can we maintain that we go by consensus when in this case, we obviously don't? —CodeCat 19:21, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

It's called stability. Would you want our logo to change every single time the tide of opinions sways a bit to a different side? --WikiTiki89 19:30, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Enough users have suggested having an amplifying vote that I have drafted one: Wiktionary:Votes/2016-05/Book logo. It will not start until this vote concludes (and it might not start at all if the situation of this vote changes from what it currently is). - -sche (discuss) 19:06, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I don't see how having another vote for the book logo will have any other result than the subvote for the book logo in this vote. Unless you're hoping that enough people will change their minds between the two votes, or that enough people from one side will forget to vote? --WikiTiki89 19:11, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

It's possible that some people, seeing that another logo they preferred does not have support and that the book logo does have support, will change their minds. Moreover, the new vote is an amplifying vote, where the plain-majority winner of this vote (assuming it continues to be that) passes if a plain majority supports that. (There is an "oppose this vote" section for people who oppose the idea of such votes.) - -sche (discuss) 19:19, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I see. The problem is that I think that this kind of vote should not be allowed by default. So it would only be valid if we first have a vote in which the proper supermajority approves the format of the vote. The real problem is that who's gonna decide whether enough people opposed the vote in order to disqualify its results? If a vote doesn't conform to our voting procedure, you can't create it in the first place. --WikiTiki89 19:26, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

What I mean by an amplifying vote is one in which a supermajority aproves the plain-majority winner of a previous vote. That is how it amplifies: it turns a plain majority into a supermajority. That assumes that a supermajority agrees that the plain-majority was a good enough of a threshold for the particular question under investigation. --Dan Polansky (talk) 05:38, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

In that case, I don't think it's as much of a problem. --WikiTiki89 15:23, 26 May 2016 (UTC)